Person

Diana Conyers

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Dr Diana Conyers is a social scientist with nearly 40 years’ experience of development work, most of it based overseas. Throughout her career she has combined practical work (including government employment, applied research and consultancy) with teaching and writing, in the belief that these two types of activity are mutually supportive.

Diana worked at IDS from January 2005 to April 2013 and primarily as Programme Convenor of the MA Governance and Development. She had a particular interest in providing IDS students with practical fieldwork experience in the local community.

Opinions

Development Frames

Second runner up
‘Why on earth did I agree to do this?’ Angela asked herself. She looked at the other people sitting with her on the podium. There were four other speakers - three men and a woman. She knew and respected them all. They were hard-working, committed people, who...

Opinion

Guest blog by Diana Conyers, a former colleague at IDS at Sussex, and someone who worked for many years in Zimbabwe. Her discussion of a new book - The Zambezi Valley Refrain: The Story of Basilwizi identifies some key ingredients for successful local development.

Publications

Journal Article

In 1983, I wrote an article entitled ‘Decentralization: The Latest
Fashion in Development Administration?’. I argued that there was
‘a growing interest in decentralisation among the governments of a
number of Third World countries, especially – but not only – in Africa’
and...

Publication

Brief

This Research Summary will show how IDS Working Paper 314 demonstrates that there is a significant gap between New Labour's rhetoric of 'deepening democracy' through citizen participation and the reality on the ground.

Working Paper

Increasing concern about the quality of democracy has prompted efforts in many countries, ‘developed’ and ‘less developed’, to ‘deepen democracy’ by increasing the opportunities for citizen participation. One such country is the UK.